Hamster Central - View Single Post - Question about cage cleaning when den is part of a tunnel system

mikatelyn · 01-28-2019, 09:45 PM

Hi,
New, first-time hamster owner here.
I purchased Smokey, a 4-ish month old male Syrian hamster, from Petco about 6 weeks ago.
I have read through this, and other, forums fairly extensively and he is now in an appropriate cage (48" x 18" aquarium) for the past month, with an 11 inch wheel. For about 2.5 weeks he's also had an ~17" x 15" section of his cage where the substrate (all living things paper bedding) is about 9" deep. He has dug tunnels throughout this area, and this is also where his den/nest is.
While he has a sand pit area that he uses as a potty, I'm also fairly certain he's doing a lot of pooping and peeing in his den.
The last time I was forced to clean out his den (he was in a crittertrail enclosed 7 inch wheel at that time) I had left it for 2 weeks and there was caked poop and pee at the bottom of the wheel, and all of his bedding was horrendously malodorous (I had read I was cleaning too much so was trying to refrain from messing with his cage so much). I put the cleanest parts of the bedding that I could find (still very smelly) back in, but he was really freaked out by the clean and wouldn't even go back in the wheel. He also reverted to being really timid and sleeping a lot for a couple of days afterwards.
I'm finally making progress with taming him with lots of bathtub/playpen playtime, and I don't want to lose ground. How do I clean out his den? I can't just spot clean it, all the tunnels will collapse. I plan on doing the "European" technique that Erin from Erin's Animals recommends, where one puts 1/3 of the old substrate back in, but I feel like he's still going to get really freaked out. Should I leave him in the cage and let him watch the clean? Or put him somewhere else? Last time I put him elsewhere and he started acting really frantic as soon as he realized his den had been messed with. If there's a hoard do I just put food back buried into the substrate and hope he finds it? I don't think I can reform the tunnels for him. Any advice would be appreciated.

01-28-2019, 09:45 PM
mikatelyn Hamster Pup Join Date: Dec 2018 Location: AZ, USA Posts: 115	Question about cage cleaning when den is part of a tunnel system Hi, New, first-time hamster owner here. I purchased Smokey, a 4-ish month old male Syrian hamster, from Petco about 6 weeks ago. I have read through this, and other, forums fairly extensively and he is now in an appropriate cage (48" x 18" aquarium) for the past month, with an 11 inch wheel. For about 2.5 weeks he's also had an ~17" x 15" section of his cage where the substrate (all living things paper bedding) is about 9" deep. He has dug tunnels throughout this area, and this is also where his den/nest is. While he has a sand pit area that he uses as a potty, I'm also fairly certain he's doing a lot of pooping and peeing in his den. The last time I was forced to clean out his den (he was in a crittertrail enclosed 7 inch wheel at that time) I had left it for 2 weeks and there was caked poop and pee at the bottom of the wheel, and all of his bedding was horrendously malodorous (I had read I was cleaning too much so was trying to refrain from messing with his cage so much). I put the cleanest parts of the bedding that I could find (still very smelly) back in, but he was really freaked out by the clean and wouldn't even go back in the wheel. He also reverted to being really timid and sleeping a lot for a couple of days afterwards. I'm finally making progress with taming him with lots of bathtub/playpen playtime, and I don't want to lose ground. How do I clean out his den? I can't just spot clean it, all the tunnels will collapse. I plan on doing the "European" technique that Erin from Erin's Animals recommends, where one puts 1/3 of the old substrate back in, but I feel like he's still going to get really freaked out. Should I leave him in the cage and let him watch the clean? Or put him somewhere else? Last time I put him elsewhere and he started acting really frantic as soon as he realized his den had been messed with. If there's a hoard do I just put food back buried into the substrate and hope he finds it? I don't think I can reform the tunnels for him. Any advice would be appreciated.